Building Teaching Dispositions and Service-Learning Practice: A Multi-Site Study

This multi-site study of candidates in nine teacher education programs sought to measure gains in pre-service teacher participants' teaching efficacy, commitment to teaching, service ethic of teaching, and acceptance of diversity, as well as their intent to personally engage in community service and to utilize service-learning in their own classrooms. Findings revealed significant gains on three measures: acceptance of diversity, importance assigned to teachers' ability to bring about social change, and intent to use service-learning in participants' future teaching. Analyses also determined the contribution of student characteristics and aspects of the service-learning experience to the dependent variables. Quality of the experience, assisting a K-12 teacher with a service-learning project and respondents' perception that the course instructor had helped them adjust to the service-learning experience were significant predictors of increased commitment to teaching. [author]